U.S. Presidential Election 2020

[sidcow]

6 hours ago, maqroll said:

As an American, I am deeply ashamed and sorry that we have foisted this imbecilic demagogue on the rest of the world. Trump is so diabolical that he is like a vortex, sucking us all down into his madness. He's a historical villain for the ages. 

Go easy man. As someone said earlier, we voted Brexit and Johnson. Dumb easily lead people are everywhere. 

[Vancvillan]

Trump might be gone but Trumpism most certainly is not. There are a significant number who like the policies but cannot stomach the man - otherwise we'd have seen the Senate swing and less losses (or gains) in the house.

Anyone who thinks this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius is sadly mistaken.

Buckle up, this is going to be a tough fight to get much (if anything) done over the next two years.

[sidcow]

6 minutes ago, Vancvillan said:

Trump might be gone but Trumpism most certainly is not. There are a significant number who like the policies but cannot stomach the man - otherwise we'd have seen the Senate swing and less losses (or gains) in the house.

Anyone who thinks this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius is sadly mistaken.

Buckle up, this is going to be a tough fight to get much (if anything) done over the next two years.

There was a lot of comments about the increasingly younger and college educated voters would probably make more states swing in the next election.  Is it not GENERALLY true that a lot of Trumpists are older? 

[HanoiVillan]

20 minutes ago, sidcow said:

There was a lot of comments about the increasingly younger and college educated voters would probably make more states swing in the next election.  Is it not GENERALLY true that a lot of Trumpists are older? 

We don't have good data yet, but it's probably true that the average age of Biden voters is lower than the average age of Trump voters. However, a large part of any electoral dividend that might come from this is offset by younger voters moving to cities in a way that is highly electorally inefficient.

[mjmooney]

11 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Why is it difficult to get a politician that isn’t a shitshow of a moral toilet, but wants to build jobs and homes and look after the great unwashed?

Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn. 

Oh, I forgot, they are evil Marxists that want to eat your children. 

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, LondonLax said:

The demographic switch you refer to has been key to someone like Trump/Brexit getting up instead of a traditional Republican/Tory. 

The way the Democrat’s ‘Blue Wall’ has considered voting Republican and U.K. Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ voted for Boris Johnson is the reason why these people got into office. 

Edit: I don’t disagree with your post above but there has definitely been a shift with moderate Republicans voting for Biden and traditional blue collar workers voting for Trump. U.K. Labour is going to try and do the same thing by getting moderate Tories to vote for Starmer. 

Think this is much more accurate than 'it can all be boiled down to globalisation', yes. I think it's possible to overstate the similarities between US and UK politics, but one observable trend in both countries is a gradual reversal of the traditional polarisation on the education axis. It used to be the case that higher-educated white people were more likely to be Republicans, while white vote voters with less education voted Democrat; that has now entirely reversed. This has led to electorally valuable gains in states with lots of white voters without college degrees.

To a large extent the trend is echoed in British politics too, though it's harder to disentangle from polarisation on the age axis.

[LondonLax]

58 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Think this is much more accurate than 'it can all be boiled down to globalisation', yes. I think it's possible to overstate the similarities between US and UK politics, but one observable trend in both countries is a gradual reversal of the traditional polarisation on the education axis. It used to be the case that higher-educated white people were more likely to be Republicans, while white vote voters with less education voted Democrat; that has now entirely reversed. This has led to electorally valuable gains in states with lots of white voters without college degrees.

To a large extent the trend is echoed in British politics too, though it's harder to disentangle from polarisation on the age axis.

Well I think the underlying reason for that shift is the argument over the winners and losers from increased globalisation. All the ugly culture wars stuff then just flows from that. Conservatives feel their society changing due to global trends and influences and feel like they are losing a part of their ‘unique local identity’ whilst progressives love feeling part of a ‘shared global community’.

[Chindie]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn. 

Oh, I forgot, they are evil Marxists that want to eat your children. 

Don't forget they're both massive, massive anti-Semites as well. Despite one being Jewish and the other doing more for Jewish causes than their own Jewish MP.

[Rolta]

15 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Well I think the underlying reason for that shift is the argument over the winners and losers from increased globalisation. All the ugly culture wars stuff then just flows from that. Conservatives feel their society changing due to global trends and influences and feel like they are losing a part of their ‘unique local identity’ whilst progressives love feeling part of a ‘shared global community’.

There are fair concerns for conservatives and their voice is obviously as relevant and worthy as anyone's. I'd argue the real problems come when the Murdoch press and tax-avoiding billionaires and millionaires fill in the narrative of those concerns with their own bullshit, which is where the culture war comes in. Imagine if there was a conservative voice that didn't resort to fear-mongering and bullshit—I'm sure then everyone would get along better in the UK and the USA.

[HanoiVillan]

25 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Well I think the underlying reason for that shift is the argument over the winners and losers from increased globalisation. All the ugly culture wars stuff then just flows from that. Conservatives feel their society changing due to global trends and influences and feel like they are losing a part of their ‘unique local identity’ whilst progressives love feeling part of a ‘shared global community’.

I'm not saying there's no role for that, though it's questionable how much someone who doesn't like hearing Polish at the corner shop is thinking 'my community is a loser from globalisation' versus 'people in England should speak English' for instance.

But the reason I keep trying to push back on this economic precarity argument, and the reason I bring up age polarisation in the UK, is that many newly-politically-active retired people are precisely *not* economically precarious. In fact, isolated from the world of work, with abundant free time and protected by the pensions 'triple lock', they may be both time- and cash-rich, but social-connection-poor; plenty of time for, eg, falling down far-right YouTube and Facebook rabbit holes, or indulging in petty bigotry in the local paper's comment section.

What we really see when we look at the numbers, is that the most economically-insecure people largely don't vote, but vote left when they do. These voters are not politically organised, and left-wing parties in the US and UK have done a poor job of either organising them or appealing to their interests (with some notable exceptions, such as the Nevada Democratic party). They are, however, generally more 'precarious' than an older, less-educated voter now protected by the triple lock or by Social Security/Medicare.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

What we really see when we look at the numbers, is that the most economically-insecure people largely don't vote, but vote left when they do. These voters are not politically organised, and left-wing parties in the US and UK have done a poor job of either organising them or appealing to their interests (with some notable exceptions, such as the Nevada Democratic party). They are, however, generally more 'precarious' than an older, less-educated voter now protected by the triple lock or by Social Security/Medicare.

I don't think that's completely right at all. Yes, "left-wing parties in the US and UK have done a poor job of either organising them or appealing to their interests" is pretty much unarguable. But I think partly as a consequence of that, the rest of what you say is not particularly accurate. I think a huge number of those people have/had as you say given up voting, but that recently, the populism of Trump and Brexit has meant in significant numbers they've voted for Right Wing people/parties. Whether it's the (former) Red Wall in the UK, or rust belt America. I think "illiberal liberalism" has been a major block to the left getting them to vote in what would be their own interests. These people have been overlooked - whether deliberately by right wing policies (tax cuts for the rich) or by being taken for granted by the left (they'll vote for us). I think left wing policy hasn't been explained to them in terms of how the left will help them. I think things the left did do for them have been disowned by the current left, because it wasn't done by them, but by predecessors (the nasty Blair, or Gordon Brown for example). Things Trump got right (and there are very few) include his approach to, or at least recognition of the problems caused by China. His promise to bring back US jobs to the USA rings as right because it identified exactly that Big Corps were sending all the manufacturing jobs overseas. That's what caused a great deal of poverty and decay - the Globalisation mentioned earlier by @LondonLax. The current left often veers away from condemning jobs going to third world nations and so on. Right wing appeals to MAGA, or Build back better or whatever resonate with many people, because they see that will help them, when they've not been helped previously. It's OK calling for better benefits, but people want to work. They want jobs and communities, not dole dependent, desolated towns. They don't hate immigrants for being immigrants, but resent others from outside taking their jobs (as they see it). They resent NY and London and California being fawned upon by parties, who barely deign to visit their areas, even in an election. And two party politics only makes it worse - particular areas get undue focus, as they're the swing areas, the rest get either the normal pampering (UK South East) or ignored, or worse still patronised and stereotyped (Wales, the North etc.). SO these people voted for populists who promised them something, even though they were never going to get what was promised. And then they get called "thick" or "racist".

What a mess.

[chrisp65]

[HanoiVillan]

19 minutes ago, blandy said:

I don't think that's completely right at all. Yes, "left-wing parties in the US and UK have done a poor job of either organising them or appealing to their interests" is pretty much unarguable. But I think partly as a consequence of that, the rest of what you say is not particularly accurate. I think a huge number of those people have/had as you say given up voting, but that recently, the populism of Trump and Brexit has meant in significant numbers they've voted for Right Wing people/parties. Whether it's the (former) Red Wall in the UK, or rust belt America. I think "illiberal liberalism" has been a major block to the left getting them to vote in what would be their own interests. These people have been overlooked - whether deliberately by right wing policies (tax cuts for the rich) or by being taken for granted by the left (they'll vote for us). I think left wing policy hasn't been explained to them in terms of how the left will help them. I think things the left did do for them have been disowned by the current left, because it wasn't done by them, but by predecessors (the nasty Blair, or Gordon Brown for example). Things Trump got right (and there are very few) include his approach to, or at least recognition of the problems caused by China. His promise to bring back US jobs to the USA rings as right because it identified exactly that Big Corps were sending all the manufacturing jobs overseas. That's what caused a great deal of poverty and decay - the Globalisation mentioned earlier by @LondonLax. The current left often veers away from condemning jobs going to third world nations and so on. Right wing appeals to MAGA, or Build back better or whatever resonate with many people, because they see that will help them, when they've not been helped previously. It's OK calling for better benefits, but people want to work. They want jobs and communities, not dole dependent, desolated towns. They don't hate immigrants for being immigrants, but resent others from outside taking their jobs (as they see it). They resent NY and London and California being fawned upon by parties, who barely deign to visit their areas, even in an election. And two party politics only makes it worse - particular areas get undue focus, as they're the swing areas, the rest get either the normal pampering (UK South East) or ignored, or worse still patronised and stereotyped (Wales, the North etc.). SO these people voted for populists who promised them something, even though they were never going to get what was promised. And then they get called "thick" or "racist".

What a mess.

These are quite strong words, given that the post seems to suggest you have completely misunderstood my point, even the absolutely foundational point that in the paragraph you are quoting, I am talking about *two different groups of people*, and that - literally by definition - Trump voters (or Brexit voters for that matter) cannot be considered to be 'not politically organised'.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

These are quite strong words, given that the post seems to suggest you have completely misunderstood my point, even the absolutely foundational point that in the paragraph you are quoting, I am talking about *two different groups of people*, and that - literally by definition - Trump voters (or Brexit voters for that matter) cannot be considered to be 'not politically organised'.

It's this bit that I was having a different view about

29 minutes ago, blandy said:

the most economically-insecure people largely don't vote, but vote left when they do

[StefanAVFC]

 

[The Fun Factory]

You know its all over when Fox pulled the press conference at the White House yesterday. Apparently Trump had a meltdown when Fox called Arizona to Biden and rang up Murdoch to complain about it.

[The Fun Factory]

12 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Well yes but you have to be smoking crack to think Sanders would have beaten Trump in the election. Even Biden wishy-washy centrist platform has only just go over the line. The states is a fairly right wing place and no socialist will ever become president.

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's this bit that I was having a different view about

To restate the point - there has been a pronounced split in voting patterns by age. This is true in the US, though complicated by additional factors like the large difference in racial composition of generations. However, it is even clearer in the UK, where a shift has been visible over the last 20 years from a point when age was a very poor predictor of voting pattern to now being the best one available. This is a poor trade-off for left-wing political parties, because young people have very poor turnout rates in elections, eg in the UK:

When it mattered less how old you were as a predictor of who you voted for, this did not particularly hamper Labour, who were able to win in 2001 and 2005 despite record-setting low youth turnout. This situation is now a problem. However, that doesn't mean that younger people do not exist, it means that many of them are 'not politically organised', by which I mean they may have never voted, have little alignment with a particular ideology, or may have extremely limited engagement.

I am not suggesting even slightly that there are no right-wing voters in these age groups. Even among 18-24 year olds, roughly 20% vote Conservative; this rises to in the region of 40% by the time we are talking of people in their 40s. But reliably Conservative voters in these age brackets are far outweighed by people who are 'not politically organised'.

Younger workers are much more likely to be 'economically precarious' than older ones, or the retired. Many younger workers own no assets; are on short-term, part-time or unpredictable hours; are on low wages. Not all, by a long stretch, but certainly a large number, and these are who I am referring to as 'economically precarious'. The proportion of retired people who own no assets or who are in deep financial insecurity is significantly lower, and older people are mostly protected by government policies from the deepest hardship.

This group of younger voters is who I am talking about above. They are mostly not people who voted for Brexit (very unpopular with younger voters), and are not regular participators in elections. They are not the reason the Conservatives won in 2019 either, which is a story of predominantly older voters switching parties in long-term Labour seats, and that is why I am saying these are largely two different groups of people.

[Davkaus]

Yup. Even the UK won't elect a left leaning PM. The US has never recovered from McCarthyism, they think socialism is evil. 

[LondonLax]

43 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Varoufakis had an article in The Guardian the other day which made enough disparaging comments about Trump to be allowed in the Guardian but also snuck in a few points about why he is a hero for the working classes in the US. 

Quote

Trump combines gross incompetence with rare competence. On the one hand, he cannot string two decent sentences together to make a point, and has failed spectacularly to protect millions of Americans from Covid-19. But, on the other hand, he tore up Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement that took decades to put together. Remarkably, he replaced it swiftly with one that is certainly not worse – at least from the perspective of American blue-collar workers or, even, Mexican factory workers who now enjoy an hourly wage considerably greater than before.

Moreover, despite his belligerent posturing, Trump not only kept his promise to not start new wars but, additionally, he withdrew American troops from a variety of theatres where their presence had caused considerable misery with no tangible benefits for peace or, indeed, American influence.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/08/hoping-for-a-return-to-normal-after-trump-thats-the-last-thing-we-need